Uttarkashi Tunnel Rescue: India performs ‘most difficult rescue missions in history’
Pix credit X Pushkar Singh Dhami
By Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi, November 28: Sporting smiles and expressing gratitude to the administration, 41 trapped workers finally emerged out of the collapsed Silkyara Tunnel after 17 days, spending over 400 hours, after an unprecedented rescue mission was launched with the involvement of several agencies, including the Indian Army. The family members of the rescued workers, who had been camping at the site, were highly relieved after sighting their loved one emerging out of the collapsed tunnel.
While the effort to push horizontal drilling to push the pipe to the place where the trapped worker were stuck had met with obstruction, it was a team of 24 rat-miners who pulled off one of the most challenging rescue missions in any parts of the world. The rat-miners hailed from Delhi and Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh. They risked their lives to go inside the tunnel to manually retrieve the debris to clear the passage for the evacuation of the trapped workers.
President Draupadi Murmu summed up the thoughts of the people all around the world who had been keeping close tabs on the updates from Silkyara. President Murmu said: “I feel relieved and happy to learn that all the workers trapped in a tunnel in Uttarakhand have been rescued. Their travails over 17 days, as the rescue effort met with obstacles, have been a testament of human endurance. The nation salutes their resilience and remains grateful to them for building critical infrastructure, even at great personal risk, far away from their homes. I congratulate the teams and all experts who have acted with incredible grit and determination to perform one of the most difficult rescue missions in history.”
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami who camped at the site for the last few days said that the successful rescue mission is testimony to “perseverance and faith”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also hailed the successful completion of the rescue mission. “Young workers who were fit crawled out of the tunnel on their own,” Dhami told reporters, adding that each rescued worker would get Rs 1 lakh from the state government. Dhami also said that the Silkyara tunnel would be reviewed. He also said that the temple for Baba Baukhnath will be rebuilt.
Rat-hole miners were pressed into action on Monday to manually drill the way to the place where the trapped workers were stuck in the collapsed tunnel. They wrapped up the work by Tuesday evening to set the stage for the National Disaster Relief Force personnel to evacuate the 41 workers who hailed from West Bengal, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand.
Ironically, rat-hole mining was banned by the National Green Tribunal for environmental and labour hardship reasons in 2014. Rat-hole mining involved digging narrow tunnels for just enough space for the workers to pass through to retrieve coal in areas such as Meghalaya which have tough mountainous terrains.
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